"Your point is valid. When their commercial interests were threatened because the crack pot dictator turned to bite the hand that had fed him, they then choose a veneer of principle from which to issue criticism"...

Columbo007

It was not only to issue criticism from, but to downright strangle the economy in defence of British Farmers' privileges in Zimbabwe. The current deaths from from cholera, from political violence and any form of intolerance precipitant from the current economic conditions are irrefragably murders by the British and their Western co-conspirators.

That is to say I will not find Mugabe guilty of any crime with regards to the Zimbabwe situation before Tony Blair and Claire Short are arraigned as instigators of it. Before they answer what madness possessed them to attempt to destroy a whole country in defence of 4000 feudal overlords.

However, my main concern was the conditions that prevailed in the former Tribal Trusts Lands into which the majority black population had been forcibly sequestered. In these communal areas where a system of customary tenure prevails, which as the article points out prevents the raising of collateral to secure loans, the soils are granitic and sandy, deficient in organic matter, sulphur and phosphate.

They are also highly leached, being low in base nutrients and minerals necessary for plant growth. They are also in the worst of the natural regions with low intermittent rainfall and a high susceptibility to seasonal drought. Their marked deterioration over the years have been meticulously documented by regional agronomists and were becoming increasingly incapable of sustaining the livelihoods of their some 1.2 million households.

Holdings here averaged 2-8 hectares compared to the commercial areas 2,500 hectares. The World Food Programme estimates that even under optimal conditions less than a hectare is ‘unsustainable’. Now, FTLR categorised two types of beneficiaries;

A1 - intended to address the needs of the landless, land short and congested households.
i.e. the rural poor, including communal farmers, some former farm workers and some urban poor and ..

A2 - people with resources and the capability of undertaking farming with minimal assistance from the government.

It is this latter portion which have received all the headlines and from whom the accusations of ‘cronyism’ are derived whilst the former, the vast majority of beneficiaries, have received little or no attention at all.

Obviously, ‘people with resources’ who avail of FTLR redistribution are, by definition, supportive of ‘land seizures’ but obviously for the land programme to actually work somebody of means needs to step into the vacuum and try to maintain production output. We can focus on productivity losses and their reasons later as here is the place to discuss the question of redistribution.

By November 2003, when the smoke had settled, smallholder (A1) allocations were granted to 130,641 families on 6.5 million hectares and ‘commercial’ (A2) beneficiaries amounted to 20,400 farmers on 2.5 million hectares.

This means that the overwhelming majority - almost 90% of beneficiaries - have been the poor and the land short whilst the numbers of white commercial farmers have fallen from 4,500 to 400 and the lands they controlled from 11 million hectares to 2 million hectares.

It has also been calculated that due to this ‘retrenchment’ households in the stressed communal areas thanks to their departed cousins have increased their holdings by an average of 1.5 hectares. These figures represent to me the principle good that has emerged from this whole sorry saga and make nonsense of the claims that redistribution was not the motivating force behind the chimerunga.

You will have to be patient with me as I'm trying to address all the issues you have raised.

4. "The land action is not exclusively against white descendents of settlers. Many blacks, and whites who acquired farms in Zimbabwe as opposed to Rhodesia, have suffered property loss. This fact alone renders most of your argument irrelevant, unless you concede that at a minimum blacks and people who acquired farms after 1980 should not have their farms stolen."

Ok, what we do know to a great degree of certainty is that the FTLR of 00-03 has created a deep structural shift both in the nature and composition of land ownership and in a reorientation of the domestic and export markets for agrarian produce. One of the least surprising elements is that intimidation and violence were eventually required to achieve this.

We also know that prior to FTLR some 4,500 white commercial farmers controlled a third of the country’s land under freehold tenure or about 42% of its agricultural and 70% of its best arable land. We know that this land was situated in the best natural regions with higher levels of rainfall, infrequent drought and proper systems of irrigation, dams and so forth.

We also know that in these commercial areas of around 11 million hectares there were significant reserves of under-utilised land of some 5 million hectares either lying fallow; abandoned by absentee landlords or devoted to eco-tourism projects such as private ranches.

Land sold post-independence to US multinationals or foreign investors that has been since expropriated may well be protected under the African Growth and Opportunities Act or other like schemes that provide insurance for FDI. I have also heard cases of some black farmers losing their farms in the commercial areas and this has been variously put down to allegations of ‘fronting’ for white shareholders, ownership of multiple plots or simply stemming from a parochial dispute over rival claims.

However, the principle target and the overwhelming source of land seizures has been the white commercial farmers. The lack of continuity between the present incumbents and the original white settlers is somewhat exaggerated. The post-independence exodus of white Rhodesians, some two thirds of the population, was not matched by the white farming community of whom only one third left the country, many selling not to foreign buyers but to their own peers eager to further consolidate their holdings.

All in all the post-independence atmosphere was conducive to business as usual with the feared pogroms against whites failing to materialise. As Chris McGreal put it recently, whites "... kept their houses and their pools and their servants. The white farmers had it even better. With crop prices soaring they bought boats on Lake Kariba and built air strips on their farms for newly acquired planes. Zimbabwe's whites reached an implicit understanding with Zanu-PF; they could go on as before, so long as they kept out of politics".

In fact, by 1989 CFU president John Brown was prompted to say;
“This is the best government for commercial farmers that this country has ever seen"

By the way I agree with you. The British cut off support to Rhodesia to accelerate the success of the Chimurenga. The British, under the management of Lord Soames, allowed ZANLA to continue Chimurenga practices after the cease fire had been agreed to giving the impression that ZANLA had "won" the war. The British allowed Mugabe into power. The British silenced their own press when they gained knowledge of the Matabeleland massacre and failed to criticize ZANU PF at the time. The British happily knighted the erstwhile Sir Robert Gabriel Mugabe in the early 90's.

Your point is valid. When their commercial interests were threatened because the crack pot dictator turned to bite the hand that had fed him, they then choose a veneer of principle from which to issue criticism.

It doesn't change anything about the nature of the murderous Mugabe and his ZANU PF minions who have brought nothing but ruin to the nation.

Yes: Lancaster house bound the hands of an independent Zimbabwe - for five years post 1980. Constitutional ammendments legitimising the land invasions were forced through after the start of the ZANU PF sponsored land invasions. Prior to this, and even at their inception, the Zimbabwean Judiciary did not support them. Of course when the Chief Justice was brutalized by partisan thugs and Chenjerai Hunzvi was granted leave by the executive to cleanse the judiciary; one might say the judiciary cracked under the political pressure.

However you know as well as I do that the rule of law was flouted and its custodians sidelined. This is a fact. So let's get on with the broader debate about whether this was justifiable.

Firstly as no opposition is permitted in Zimbabwe it is difficult to claim that through the ruin of the country and until today, ZANU PF has enjoyed the people's mandate.

Secondly if ZANU PF had an alternative agenda to that which it promised at independence then by your own assertion it stands guilty at the very least of a gross hypocracy.

Thirdly (which you failed to answer in my last post) the land action is not exclusively against white descendents of settlers. Many blacks, and whites who acquired farms in Zimbabwe as opposed to Rhodesia, have suffered property loss. This fact alone renders most of your argument irrelevant, unless you concede that at a minimum blacks and people who acquired farms after 1980 should not have their farms stolen.

Fourthly if this was genuine land reform why was it conducted in such a way so as to render the farms barren and plunge the country into food shortages? Please enlighten with something other than "we as ZANU PF could no longer contain the anger of our people etc" - if I want trite smug party line I can always engage my good friend ZANU PF Strategist II.

Fifth why does the MDC have to be brutalised and beaten and subjugated by ZANU PF agents if its promises to halt "land reform" are unpopular?

Here is the fact of the matter. When the 2000 referendum was voted down, ZANU PF realised its gross unpopularity and decided to teach rural Zimbabweans who was in charge, in terms of the tried and trusted methods concieved of and practiced by ZANLA during the Chimurenga. This was a preview of what occurred when Robert Mugabe lost the last election to President Morgan Tsvangirai. Again ZANU PF "unleashed" (to use ZANU PF language) its best campaign efforts - which as all Zimbabweans know means beat, raped, tortured, brutalised and murdered. To realise this agenda in the rural areas, the farm invasions were necessary.

Now if you want to intellectualise the issue, as you clearly do, let's discuss why all this is justifiable, instead of pretending that it is legitimate in terms of the rule of law that once existed in Zimbabwe, or pretending that the people have mandated it.

That discussion would be interesting, and I would appreciate your views.

That the British Crown chooses to reward or reward actions if anything in my book renders those actions dubious.

Again; I fail to understand your point.

Are you denying that there were atrocities committed? Are you saying that they were commmitted but justly? Are you saying that whatever happened, the British endorsed Perence Shiri and as such he is beyond criticism?

"3. Zimbabwe's own courts have ruled this land action illegal. Do you not recognise that respect for a strong and independent judiciary is pivotal to a well governed state?"

Columbo007,

The Zimbabwean judiciary have been at the forefront of the Chimerungan struggle, being arguably the principal agent used to facilitate redistribute land reform. Their rulings have constantly thwarted appeals made by the Commercial Farm Worker’s Union to have ‘their’ lands restored.

Moreover, they have done all this in accordance with their obligations under the Constitution by invoking the ‘overriding importance’ of the clauses in Section 16A to which I alluded earlier. In fact, the Attorney General has over a hundred prosecution cases before him as we speak for white farmers who have refused to vacate their property.

A more competent line from an anti-Zanu perspective would be to highlight the 2001 expansion of the Supreme Court with three judges who had received allotments from the FTLR - and then to question their impartiality bonafides when it comes to ruling on such cases!

It is a little surprising then that you invoke the argument that their independence has been ‘compromised’ from the fictitious assumption that their rulings have been ignored by the GoZ, when in fact the higher benches have been front-loaded by Zanu party faithful - though it is questionable to what degree any ‘actor’ may be said to be ‘independent’ in near civil war conditions. This to me is a case of all hands to the pump, a high stakes game - that has led to a dangerous cleavage, one only recently abated by the formation of a GNU.

Perhaps you are paying too much attention to those early headlines which generally ran ‘court rules land grabs illegal’ or ‘land occupations unconstitutional’ without reading the ensuing fine print which will most likely reveal that in that specific case there has been a failure on the part of occupiers or their land agents to adhere to certain protocols whose breach has been deemed either unconstitutional or contrary to some other aspect of Zimbabwean law.

In fact, most of the international press made this assumption with the November 2000 Supreme Court ruling on the legality of occupations, choosing to interpret it as a definitive rejection of the repossessions. Then Information Minister, Johnathan Moyo, had to confirm subsequently in a BBC interview that he was surprised by press reports that the Supreme Court had declared the land programme illegal. All that the ruling confirmed was that the resettlement programme should proceed in accordance with the laws of the country - just like any other activity.

Why finally, do you think so much store has been placed on the ruling of the SADC Tribunal if not the acknowledgement among white commercial farmers that there own judiciary has ‘failed’ to protect them?

“When ZANU PF conducted a referendum to obtain a mandate to change this feature of the constitution, the (almost exclusively black) citizens of Zimbabwe voted not to change the constitution. Will you stand up and speak in support of a government that disregards the mandate of its own people?”

As mentioned in the earlier post the entire thrust of the sections pertaining to property rights were always predisposed to subordinating those rights to the greater public interest which in Zimbabwe’s case meant the transference of small-holder farmers from the increasingly degraded communal areas or Tribal Trusts Lands to the more sustainable Natural Regions in the highlands occupied by the white commercial farmers. No changes introduced by a successful referendum would have altered this fundamental fact.

If you look at the proposed constitution of Feb 2000 (which was defeated 54% to 45%) you will see that there were many changes which were being made; including a limitation to two Presidential terms.

The general confusion wrought by the multiplicity of changes is reflected in the low turnout - half those who voted for the parliamentary elections- and is reminiscent of the failure of Chavez’s first attempts to extend his terms in Venezuela. Voters don’t respond to this type of change ‘en bloc’, as Ireland witnessed with the Lisbon Treaty.

Likewise, with this type of referendum there are no shortage of analysts who will pretend to be able to read the minds of the electorate and tell us all why they voted in such and such fashion. If it was such a setback for Zanu‘s platform of land redistribution then why did they win two thirds of the vote in the subsequent senate and parliamentary elections?

One reason springs to mind; they green-lighted accelerated land reform.

"ZANU PF is bound by the constitution of Zimbabwe to respect the property rights of all its citizens. Can you stand up and respect a government that flouts it own constitution?"

Columbo007,

First of all, the current Constitution of Zimbabwe was compiled under the scrutiny of British negotiators and representatives of the former Rhodesian government during the Lancaster House talks of 1979 and thus bears the imprimatur of a colonial era ‘compromise document’. In certain cases it inevitably repudiates any democratic expression of majority will such as its early stipulation that whites were guaranteed 20% of parliamentary seats despite being a less than 1% minority. This is in addition of course to the provisions that delayed redistributive land reform. Most sides of the political spectrum, barring the white-dominated Commercial Farmer’s Union, were naturally unhappy with these origins which is why in the GNU power-sharing agreement there are provisions to draft a new Constitution, one that acknowledge the ‘fundamental right and duty of the Zimbabwean people to make a Constitution by themselves and for themselves’ and that the process must be ‘owned and driven by the people and must be inclusive and democratic’.

Nevertheless, though many of the subsequent amendments to the present Constitution (there have been eighteen in total), have reflected the changing contours of the struggle to reclaim formerly dispossessed lands it has always been the case that property rights whilst normatively consistent with international standards may in certain cases ‘be subordinated to the public interest’. This arises from the somewhat unique circumstances of Zimbabwe’s inheritance of skewed and unsustainable patterns of land ownership. Thus the section on ‘Agricultural Land Required for Resettlement’ has become somewhat bulkier over the years but its main tenets were already in place prior to the 16th amendment of 2000;

“(1) In the assessment of any compensation that may be payable when agricultural land is compulsorily acquired for the resettlement of people in accordance with a programme of land reform, the following factors must be regarded as of ultimate and overriding importance;
(a) before Independence the people of Zimbabwe were unjustifiably dispossessed of their land and other resources without compensation;
(b) the people consequently took up arms in order to regain their land and political sovereignty, and this ultimately resulted in the Independence of Zimbabwe in 1980;
(c) the former colonial power has effectively repudiated Zimbabwe’s just claims for reparations;
(d) the people of Zimbabwe must therefore be enabled to reassert their rights and regain ownership of their land.”

Now, if we move to the post-2000 amended version we see that the passage which deals explicitly with the rights of property - to wit Section 16 ‘Protection from deprivation of property’ there is written;

(1) Subject to section sixteen A, no property of any description or interest or right therein shall be compulsorily acquired ….

In other words, they are not 'flouting' the Constitution’s protection of 'private property rights', but are, on the contrary, using successive amendments both to protect normative property rights whilst advancing legislation aimed at reversing inequitable patterns of land distribution derived from colonial times.

Please desist from the fairy tales. I only present you with solid facts. Today I will present you with notable alumni of the Royal College of Defence Studies. By this I am insisting that Britain imposed illegal sanctions that destroyed Zimbabwe only because their aim was a racist agenda to protect white privileges.

When our black people had to fight each other and whites were not affected they rewarded our soldiers who they now dare to accuse of human rights abuses. Rule of law and all these stupid mantras you come up with deceive only the gullible. With me, you waste your time....

The list I promised you is as follows, Please look at the name listed as number 4 and tell me why this man was a student here at a time when he is alleged to have been carrying out human rights abuses? Why was this man rewarded by the UK, which is supposed to be such a shining beacon of all that is morally right?

1.Pervez Musharraf Former President and former Army Chief of Pakistan

2.Klaus Naumann Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
Field Marshal Lord Vincent of Coleshill Chairman of the NATO Military Committee

1. ZANU PF is bound by the constitution of Zimbabwe to respect the property rights of all its citizens. Can you stand up and respect a government that flouts it own constitution?

2. When ZANU PF conducted a referendum to obtain a mandate to change this feature of the constitution, the (almost exclusively black) citizens of Zimbabwe voted not to change the constitution. Will you stand up and speak in support of a government that disregards the mandate of its own people?

3. Zimbabwe's own courts have ruled this land action illegal. Do you not recognise that respect for a strong and independent judiciary is pivotal to a well governed state?

4. The land action is not exclusively against white descendents of settlers. Many blacks, and whites who acquired farms in Zimbabwe as opposed to Rhodesia, have suffered property loss. This fact alone renders most of your argument irrelevant, unless you concede that at a minimum blacks and people who acquired farms after 1980 should not have their farms stolen.

We may debate the pros and cons of land reform in Africa, and I acknowledge that you make a compelling case in favour, although distance myself from your obvious racism. However in Zimbabwe this is not land reform. This action is a response to the growing unpopularity of ZANU PF in rural areas. This is another action against the people of Zimbabwe, perpetrated by ZANU PF, using state resources to retain an increasingly unpopular and vicious grip on power.

Unless of course you are part of the African ranks who will forgive Mugabe and ZANU PF all these infractions just because he bullied a few hundred white farmers. Then you are among those who value the bruises on a few white farmers heads more highly than an entire nation.

I have read the memoirs of the very assassins, so am informed as to this story.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make. In one situation the Rhodesians were fighting the national liberation armies; it was a war.

In the other situation the Zimbabwean security forces were used to inflict hurt and murder on an unarmed civilian population. It was indiscriminate (men, women and children; it was not indiscriminate in the sense that one tribe was singled out for this treatment, as is typical in neo-colonial Africa) state sponsored brutality.

The two are hardly comparable.

Unless you are suggesting that in the early 80's there was a foreign army fully armed, using the uniforms, vehicles and armour of the Zimbabwean security forces, setting up torture, rape and murder camps, raiding villages, starving civilians and generally inflicting harm on Matabeleland's rural population?

I am amazed there are people still out there who believe Mugabe is interested in land redistrubution. This image of Mugabe the militant revolutionary giving back land to the peasants forgets one crucial detail: he was in power for 30 years. So why didnt he do it in the early 80s?

Revolutionaries do not become more militant the older they get it is usually the other way round.

Mugabe is intersted in one thing: to remain in power for as long as possble. That has been the curse of Africa. A relatively reasonable, relatively competent leader comes to power. He decides to stay and gets progressively more corrupt and incompetent as he forgets about his responsibility to his people and focuses all his energy to the business of staying in power. He surrounds himself with men chosen not for the competence but loyalty.

The country rots away and eventually collapses. Uganda and Zimababwe are text book examples. In the formedr case the collapse is coming.

What I don't understand is why does the world community puts up with this? why not withdraw recognition from autocrats like Museveni and Mugabe who trample on their constitutions and squash their people?

"It was shortly after my Cape Town visit that Chitepo, one of the black nationalist leaders living in Lusaka, was killed by a bomb explosion. I was briefed that his death was a product of internal strife within ZANU. This seemed to be confirmed when the head of ZANU's armed wing, Josiah Tongogara, was arrested in Zambia and imprisoned by Kaunda for the murder. Then a judicial commission of enquiry, set up by the Zambian government, found that Tongogara and others were responsible. I (and everyone else) learned later, when Ken Flower of the CIO published his memoirs in the 1980s, that he and the CIO had concluded that the assassination of Chitepo would serve to broaden the rifts between the terrorist organisations and their supporters. And at least in the short term, Flower was right: the death of Chitepo sowed deep suspicions among the terrorist ranks"

To this day accusations persist(Ken Flower's Serving Secretly was published in 1987) that President Mugabe killed Herbert Chitepo. When confronted with this type of ignorant persons, who have no desire for research, but all the same want to be regarded as knowledgeable, I tend to walk away.

My main point being; what else has seemed a foregone conclusion but has turned out otherwise when the real murderers confess?

Graeme A; "Back in 1980 the white residents of Rhodesia committed themselves to the oblivion with the promises of security given by the UK. Zimbabwe was one of the great victories of the Western Left. Now we have a government from that Left in the UK and what are they doing to fulfill the promises made to the whites in 1980?"

As far as I remember when the Labour Party came to power they disowned their, and by extension the UK's commitments to fund land reform, as accepted under Lancaster, by arguing that they were a 'working class movement' unlike the Conservatives who were derived from the 'landed propertied class'. They concluded that this historical party difference absolved them of their obligations once they had attained power and entered government. Why, after all, they must have argued, should the British taxpayer be forced to bail out the Rhodesian unilateralists?

Of course, the shift in position was in place even before FTLR/3rd Chimurenga as evidenced by the UK's pre- 98' Donor's Conference assertion that compensation was 'beyond the capacity of any individual nation'. Talk about cleaning your hands of Empire.

Anyway, I actually agree with Claire Shortt. There shouldn't be any question of compensation. The BSAF conquered on behalf of the Crown via their Matlin inspired massacre of the Shona/Ndebele uprising of 1897 and then sold concessions to the victors/white settlers - who ever since have been enjoying the fruits of the land's produce.

If objective justice were a tangible entity the 'compensation' would be the other way round. Were it up to me I'd have blocked their passage, swathed them in chains and demanded a 100 years servitude from them and their offspring.

The so-called 'landmark' ruling of the SADC Tribunal is hilarity compounded. It stretches incredulity that they expect their vast acres of prime arable land which their forebears had acquired at gunpoint prior to establishing an apartheid state, to be repatriated on account of a 'racially discriminatory' land policy.

A prominent organ of the international media finally acknowledges there is a man called Sam Moyo who may perhaps after all know what he's talking about when it comes to the 'agrarian question'. At last, though somewhat belatedly, someone has deigned to solicit the opinion of a native Zimbabwean who has spent his life studying and writing about land reform in Southern Africa.

Virtually every Western-oriented magazine and newspaper article I've grimly endured on the subject of Zimbabwe could, over the years, have done us all a service by prefacing their 'analysis' with the humble rejoinder; "Of course, our anti-Mugabe rhetoric has us gripped in such an inexplicable fever, draining us of all composure and capacity to reason soundly that perhaps we must allow the possibility that our wits have being marshalled by a particularly virulent memeplex intent on exposing our in-built biases for all of posterity. If the reader shares these suspicions please consult the work of Prof. Sam Moyo to restore some much needed balance."

The fact that Mugabe has managed to surround himself with sufficient compliant puppets in a supposed Democracy does not bode well for the future. He had but one chance of benign change, and he squandered it after a very hopeful beginning.

From this point on it will follow all the other struggling States in the world, where the only thing that ever changes is the person or party holding the whip.

The average Zimbabwean has gone from being disenfranchised by the Whites to being destituted by the Blacks, and both under the name of Democracy.

When Mugabe finally leaves, either dead or alive, there will be a short power struggle, followed by an equal despot.

Democracy is not an African Concept. It took the Magna Carta and a thousand years of dissension for Britain to get it to work.

Except for a very few modern Democracies, nearly all of the world's democracies are failing to a lesser or greater degree. Personally I class even the US democracy as dysfunctional.

With only the second Zimbabwean generation into this foreign concept, called democracy, being carried out in foreign ways, adhering to foreign rules, I can confidently predict that nobody reading this letter will ever see "Democracy" arrive for Zimbabwe.

Of course I could not resist the temptation to point out the usefulness of car crashes in eliminating Mugabes opponents both within and outside of ZANU PF.

In fact you will recall the advert that had the sound of a car crash and then a voice over that said "Vote ZUM and die" in the short-lived ZUM campaign.

I am glad the attack on that rabid rat (I prefer to use his moral rank) Perence Shiri's life failed. It would be an undeservingly easy death for him to die by gunshot wounds. I only hope that The Honorable (moral rank again) Frank Muchirahondo does not suffer excessively for his attempt to do something brave and worthwhile.

“Land distribution will continue!” he told his 2,000 or so partying guests. “The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms, as they have no place there…I am still in control and hold executive authority.”

Ian Smith made the fatal mistake of following South Africa's model to oblivion, and I shall be very surprised if SA does not follow the Zimbabwean model to oblivion.

The intellectuals knew even before the 60's that the British/South African model was doomed to failure. History seems to have shown that different Groups only have two solutions, either marry them or kill them. No other solution has ever stood the test of time.